President steps down early at FAMU

Castell Vaughn Bryant, Florida A&M University's struggling interim president, said she will leave May 31, a month earlier than expected.

Bryant sent FAMU's trustees a letter Thursday, saying she felt it was in the university's best interest if she resigned.

Bryant, a FAMU alumnus and former president of Miami-Dade College's north campus, was supposed to leave at the end of June. James H. Ammons, FAMU's former provost, is supposed to take over as president July 2.

FAMU, the state's only historically black college, has been paralyzed by reports of financial mismanagement for years.

Bryant was brought in 2 1/2 years ago to right those wrongs. But a recent preliminary audit revealed that there were even more financial problems, including undocumented phone calls and vehicle use and nearly $40-million that wasn't recorded as budgeted expenditures.